Cybercrime

With everything in society advancing rapidly, it should be of no surprise that technology is now used to commit crimes against other people. Those crimes include identity theft, stealing money, illegal gambling, and cyberstalking. This paper will review cybercrime and the differences there are from traditional crime and it will review the purpose of hackers. There will also be three cases reviewed to help bring light to what kind of cybercrimes are being committed around the world.

Differences between Cybercrime and Traditional Crime

For an individual to fully understand the difference between cybercrime and traditional crime, the individual needs to understand what cybercrime is. The definition of cybercrime is according to "Oxford Dictionaries" (2014), "crime conducted via the internet or some other computer network" (cybercrime). Cybercrime is committed by hackers with the goal of financial gain in min by stealing personal information(bank information, credit card information, etc) from individuals. Traditional Crime is a considered crimes against the public. There are many different categories for cybercrime but the main four include identity theft, illegal gambling, cyber terrorism, and cyber stalking. Both cybercrime and traditional crime are charged on a state law level; however, there are plenty of federal laws that can be violated through committing cybercrime. The main difference that needs to be known is that when cybercrimes are committed, the crimes are done so from the luxury of a hacker's house or place of business while traditionally crimes are not. Another difference worth noting is that cybercrime criminals have the ability to commit these crimes from different states, even internationally at some levels. When cybercrimes are committed liken that, it makes it hard to prosecute as the laws may vary from place to place. That is usually when federal laws are reviewed for a prosecution to happen.

Purposes of Hacking

Hacking dates back to the 1950's. This is long before the birth of the internet. Hacking began as a method or searching for shortcuts when encountering a computer issue. According to "Marriam Webster" (2014), A hacker is "a person who secretly gets access to a computer system in order to get information, cause damage" (para. Hacker). Today hacking of often referred to a person wanting to cause havoc in a computer or many computer systems for a reason. Hacking has evolved over the years. In the beginning, hacking was often used to prank, cause mischief and curiosity. Hacking today has grown very large and has been categorized into the types of hacking. Although hackers use different methods of accessing unauthorized information, the most common reason for doing such things is for financial gain.

Kevin Mitnick vs the USA

Kevin Mitnick began hacking at an early age of 12. As this age he began making punch cards for the Los Angeles transit authority. Mitnick also joined a phone phreak gang which conducted many pranks. The group discovered a way to take over the telephone directory assistance and prank incoming callers. The group also changed the status of home phones to payphone status. A home telephone user would attempt to use the telephone but a recording would request the user to deposit twenty cents. The group accessed a San Francisco based company and destroyed files. More than a year later, this crime was unsolved. It was not until a member's girlfriend went to the police. This led to the arrest of Kevin Mitnick, age 17, and other members of the group.

Mitnicks streak of hacks has landed him in jail multiple times throughout his hacking spree. At the age of 16, Mitnick accessed a computer manufacturing company and sold their software. He went on the run for several years by accessing companies via computers to produce identity documents. He was not convicted of these crimes. He was eventually arrested for hacking into Nokia and Motorola and convicted. This arrest landed him in jail for four and-a-half years before being brought to trial. Upon his release in 2000, he was restricted from using any communications technology which was more advanced than a wired home phone. Mitnick contested this ban and won. He now owns Mitnick Security Consulting LLC.

The RBS World Pay servers

WorldPay is a Payment Card Industry that helps businesses in payments processing. WorldPay headquarters is based in Atlanta, Georgia and have expanded globally in London, Belfast, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Sweden, Singapore, Montreal and a few other countries. WorldPay payment processing service enabled businesses to accept payments from customers from different payment types such as, Visa, MasterCard, discover, American Express, debit and gift cards, checks, Electronic benefits Transfer, and direct debit. The WorldPay hacking was considered the most sophisticated attack so far in history. In November 2008, According to Baker, Associated Press (2012) hackers infiltrated the RBS WorldPay servers and accessed prepaid payroll card numbers, cracked their encrypted pin codes, raised the balances on the cards and distributed dozens of them to a team of people around the world. Within a matter of hours, the same group of hackers hit 2,100 ATM terminals in 280 cities around the world from the U.S. to Russia.to Italy to Japan. FBI tracked down the hackers by narrowing down their suspects to one man who worked for the company and his name is Oleg Covelin. After he found a vulnerability in the computer network that RBS WorldPay uses, he passed the information to Sergei Tsurikov of Tallinn, Estoria who then distributed 44 counterfeit cards to a team of cashers around the world. The hackers tried to cover their tracks but the FBI traced the hackers by using Cyber forensics and also with the help of foreign authorities and international banks. Sergei Tsurikov, Viktor Pleshchuk of St. Petersburg, Russia, and Oleg, Covelin of Chisinau, Moldova and three others from Estonia were indicted in the case in 2009. Three of the main suspects were convicted in Estonia and the other suspects are awaiting sentence.

In conclusion, although traditional crime is still around, cybercrime is slowly making its way into society and the advancement of technology is helping that happen. The only difference between the two types of crimes is the way they are committed. Hackers will not let anything stop them from achieving the ultimate goal of successfully hacking a system. With the cases listed and reviewed it is clearly stated that hacking and cybercrimes can be committed by anyone for any certain reason. No one can be sure that their information is completely safe but it is better to take precaution by not putting so much personal information on the web than it would be to not worry and end up the victim of cybercrime. Hackers continue to expand their knowledge on the systems to hack so that should push society to expand the security for the web